NEW JERSEY: NJ Adoptees May Get Access to Records

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BERGEN RECORD
March 10, 2008

N.J. adoptees may get access to records
BY ELISE YOUNG

New Jersey adoptees, historically denied their full life stories, soon may gain access to their birth parents' medical histories and cultural backgrounds.

They also could learn the names and addresses of their birth mothers, even if those women once were guaranteed anonymity forever.

For some people, the prospect of unsealed records invokes unmitigated joy. For others -- some who had their babies decades ago, when out-of-wedlock births were a stigma -- the feeling is sheer terror.

"The truth is I can never have any real peace," one woman wrote lawmakers preparing to vote on the matter, "because now I never know whether a knock on the door or call on the phone will be his attempt at trying to intrude in my life against my repeatedly declared wishes to be left alone."

She submitted anonymous, written testimony and recalled the shame and fear of a high school pregnancy. When she gave up her son, she was assured they could meet in the future only if both agreed. More than 30 years later, the woman wrote, "my birth son ... is trying to hunt me down."

"This is really about identity and truth of a human being's existence," Darryl McDaniels -- better known as the rapper DMC -- told a state Senate committee when he testified about learning he was adopted. "I want my book to begin from Chapter 1 and not from Chapter 2."

Philip Foley of South Jersey testified on behalf of his wife, who as a teenager was raped, conceived and sent to a home for unwed mothers.

"She held on to the only comfort that she was offered -- promises that once her ordeal was over and adoption papers signed, her secret would never be revealed to anyone, ever," he said. For more than 30 years, he said, not even he knew.

Ten years ago, the child located her birth mother.

"I cannot describe the pain I saw on my wife's face when she was forced to tell me her secret as her world was falling apart," he said.

The state Senate approved the bill last week. If it gets support in the Assembly and is signed by Governor Corzine, adoption information could be available as early as next year. Information about all adoptees' pasts would be available, no matter how long ago they were given up and what promises were made to their birth mothers.

Maine, New Hampshire, Delaware, Tennessee, Alabama and Oregon have changed their laws to allow such access, according to the American Adoption Congress, a non-profit group that advocates for greater availability of birth records. Kansas never restricted such records to adoptees.

In New Jersey, activists have tried to unseal the state's adoption records for nearly 30 years, citing needs from the practical (concerns about genetic health conditions, for instance) to the philosophical (a curiosity about one's roots.).

For just as long, a coalition of opponents – including the American Civil Liberties Union and the New Jersey Catholic Conference -- have pushed back just as hard, chiefly arguing for rights to anonymity granted to birth parents.

Patrick Brannigan, executive director of the Catholic Conference, said the group -- whose members include the Archdiocese of Newark and the dioceses of Paterson, Metuchen and Trenton -- supports the release of medical information. But to disclose birth parents' names without their consent, he said, would be "a callous betrayal."

"A simple and fair approach would be a mutual-consent registry," he said.

But state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, said the bill takes birth mothers' concerns into account.

"We've made a great step forward to protect everyone in the system," Weinberg said.

Under the law, information now sealed by the courts would be accessible by adoptive parents, adoptees over 18 and the adoptees' children.

Shortly after birth, the biological mother would indicate how she wants to interact with the child in the years ahead: directly, through an intermediary or not at all.

The mother also would submit family information, including medical, cultural and social histories. Those details would be released to adoptees upon request. But the mother could stipulate that her name and contact information be withheld.

Birth mothers who gave up their children years ago would have to contact the state to indicate their preferences. Critics say such a requirement is risky: What if some women never learn about a change in the law? What about women who fear that contacting the state somehow would lead to mailings or phone calls from a government agency, which would tip off family members to an old secret? What if the birth mother's name were released accidentally?

"Our position is that a person should not have to opt out of having their name released," Brannigan said. "We always have said that we are supportive of reunions and of people finding out information about their heritage -- if it's of mutual consent."

State Sen. Bill Baroni, R-Mercer, who was adopted, said his vote to release the bill from the Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee was one of the most difficult he ever cast.

"This is an imperfect compromise," Baroni said. "One some level you're dealing with contrasting values. You have promises made 20, 30, 40 years ago. And you have many adopted kids who have a real need to understand their past. This is not legislation that everyone is going to be happy with. It's incumbent on people like me to publicize the opt-out provision."

McDaniels, the rapper who was 35 when he learned he was adopted, recounted how a clerk denied him access to his birth certificate in New York State.

"She said, 'That don't exist' -- and this is what killed me -- 'to you,' " he said.

Eventually, McDaniels said, he reunited with his birth mother. But at 43, he said, he continues to reassure his adoptive parents that he considers them his family.

"I want to fix it so adoptees don't have to go through what I'm going through today," he said.

E-mail: younge@northjersey.com

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UNITED STATES: As Adopees Seek Roots, States Unsealing Records

Go to link for sidebar on history of open records, current stats, and pictures

Tom Atwood steps in the cow pie.

USA TODAY
February 13, 2008

As Adoptees Seek Roots, States Unsealing Records

By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY

When Maine state Sen. Paula Benoit got a bill passed last year, she got more than a new law: She found pieces of her past.

For years, Benoit, 52, had wondered about the parents who had put her up for adoption. That helped lead her to support a plan to give adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates. After the bill passed, Benoit learned the names of her birth parents and their hometown. She e-mailed a colleague, Sen. Bruce Bryant, who represents that area and supported her bill, and asked whether he knew them.

His reply: The deceased couple were his grandparents.

"Oh, for the love of God, I need to call him and say, 'I'm your aunt,' " Benoit recalls thinking. "Can the world be any smaller?"

There was more: Bryant's brother, Mark, serves in Maine's House of Representatives — and had opposed Benoit's bill. "It's too open," he says, adding that birth mothers expected privacy when they placed children for adoption years ago. He says he's happy Benoit is in his family but worries the new law may force some birth parents into contact they do not want.

Three lawmakers, two points of view, one family.

As unusual as Benoit's story is, the debate within her family over whether adult adoptees should be able to learn more about their backgrounds is echoing across the nation.

Last year, Maine was one of three states to pass laws to give such adoptees full or partial access to their original birth certificates — more than in any year since 2000, according to a USA TODAY analysis of state records. Massachusetts approved access for those born before July 1974, when records were sealed, or after January 2008. North Carolina approved indirect access through a state-appointed intermediary. When its law takes effect next January, Maine will become the eighth state to give adult adoptees full access to their birth records, which list birth parents' names.

The controversial push to open adoption records is driven in part by the increased interest among many Americans in finding their ancestral roots. Many adult adoptees may be able to find their birth parents without an original birth certificate by searching databases and the Internet, but the official record makes it easier. Some adoptees want to establish a relationship with birth parents; others are more interested in family medical histories. Some don't want to contact their birth parents, they simply want to know their past.

"For 52 years, I know I've been loved," Benoit says of her adoptive parents, who are alive and support her desire to know birth relatives. Even so, she says, she wondered whom she looked like. She wondered why, despite diet after diet, she couldn't lose weight. "Does obesity run in my family?" she'd ask herself.

"This is really about identity and the truth of a human being's existence," Darryl McDaniels, known as the rapper DMC, told lawmakers last month in New Jersey, where bills to open birth records have languished for decades. McDaniels, 43, learned at 35 that he was adopted and has since backed a bill to unseal birth certificates.

"We never start a book from Chapter 2," he said. "As adoptees, we live our lives from Chapter 2."

As the situation in New Jersey suggests, unsealing birth certificates often has been difficult. Bills to do so were proposed in at least seven other states last year but did not pass. Some proposals, such as those in New Jersey, have been stymied by opposition from the National Council for Adoption and some Catholic bishops, abortion opponents and civil libertarians.

Thomas Atwood, president of the council, which represents adoption agencies, says birth mothers were promised privacy and if that promise is broken, fewer women will choose adoption over abortion.

Despite the opposition, "the general trend is clear: Adoptees are being given access, state by state," says Fred Greenman, legal adviser to the American Adoption Congress, which supports open birth records.

Greenman reconnected with his daughter in 1991, more than 30 years after agreeing to her adoption. The daughter's husband made the first call and set up a meeting. "We spent the whole day at the dining room table talking," he recalls. He says most birth parents welcome contact, as he did, and adoptees deserve to know their past.

Last year's increase in access laws also reflects a larger trend toward openness in adoption, as more birth parents seek to stay in contact with kids they relinquish. "There's far more acceptance of it being open," says Herbert Brail, head of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys.

That was not the case decades ago when many women, under the stigma of unmarried pregnancy, felt forced to relinquish their babies, says Ann Fessler, author of The Girls Who Went Away, a 2006 book about women who gave up children in the 1950s and 1960s.

Fessler, an adoptee, says many of the women she interviewed have "tremendous guilt." She says they want contact with their children, and about half have it. The rest, she says, feel they have no right to it but wonder about their children.

Fessler, 58, says women in their mid-70s and 80s, are — like her own birth mother — often more reticent about a reunion. She wrote her 77-year-old mother a letter, then a postcard, and waited more than a year but got no response. So she called. "I was very, very nervous — kind of shaking," she says. Her mother was friendly on the phone, so they met in person a few months later. "We chatted like crazy," Fessler says.

Now, however, they have "minimal" contact. Her mother has not told her other three children about Fessler. "She's still torn about whether she can come out about this," Fessler says.

Eileen McQuade, president of the American Adoption Congress, says unsealing birth records has not created problems in the states that have done so — Alabama, Delaware, New Hampshire, Oregon and Tennessee. Two other states, Alaska and Kansas, have never sealed birth records. Delaware allows full access except when birth parents object.

Abortion rates have declined in the states that allow full access to records, as they have nationwide. Most birth parents in Alabama, New Hampshire, Oregon and Tennessee have consented to contact with their children or the release of records, according to records reviewed by USA TODAY.

After Oregon began releasing records in 2000, few birth mothers complained, says E. Wayne Carp, author of Adoption Politics: Bastard Nation & Ballot Initiative 58, a book on the state's experience.

As each state opens records, others will follow, says Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, which favors unsealing records. "Success breeds success."

A battle of legal rights

The legislative battles often pit an adoptee's right to his or her birth certificate against a birth mother's right to privacy.

"People have a right to their birth records," says Marley Greiner, founder of Bastard Nation, a group pushing to unseal records.

There is no such legal right, Atwood counters, adding that birth mothers believe they were promised privacy when states sealed records. He says many won't speak out because they have other kids or spouses who don't know about the adoption.

Birth records were sealed not to give birth mothers anonymity but to protect adoptive parents from interference from birth parents, says Elizabeth Samuels, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law. She says some were sealed to protect adoptees from the stigma of illegitimacy.

If birth mothers or adopted children really want to find each other, Atwood says, they can list their names in registries set up by states.

Not all states have registries. Many that do make few matches, says Marri Rillera of the International Soundex Reunion Registry, which gives adoptees and birth parents free help in finding each other. In Texas, about 8,500 adoptees, siblings and birth parents have registered. One or two matches are made each month, says Patricia Molina, who oversees the registry.

"A registry is not the answer," Rillera says. "Open records are."

She says some companies charge thousands of dollars to search records and some adoption agencies charge $400 to $500 for non-identifying information about birth parents, such as age, medical history, ethnicity and religion. An adoptee's search will be quicker and cheaper if birth records are open, she says. "Frankly, I'd like to be out of business."

'We've had mixed emotions'

At least 19,000 adoptees have asked for their birth certificates in Alabama, Delaware, New Hampshire, Oregon and Tennessee.

"I've seen a lot of people whose hands shake" when they get the record, says Melanie Orman, adoption coordinator for New Hampshire. She says many had met their birth mother or knew her name but wanted the piece of paper as a record of their past.

Birth mothers can be distressed. Orman got a call from an angry woman who said she was awakened at 11 p.m. by a call from someone who said, "You're my mother." She says the woman felt her privacy had been invaded.

"We've had mixed emotions: happy, sad, upset," says Carolyn Jones, coordinator of post-adoption services at the Tennessee Department of Children's Services.

Adoptees seeking birth certificates is "routine now," says Carol Sanders at Oregon's Center for Health Statistics. From June 2000 through November 2007, 9,571 adoptees sought records in Oregon. Of 564 birth parents who filed forms on whether they wanted contact, 85 said no.

"I've seen very few who say no," says Dorothy Harshbarger, Alabama's registrar of vital records. She estimates 95% of birth parents allow contact. She says a few complained after records were unsealed in 2000, but not many since then.

A dozen states provide partial access to original birth certificates, depending on the date of the adoption and the permission of birth parents. Another dozen allow indirect access through a state-appointed intermediary if birth parents agree. In other states, adoptees need court approval.

In Illinois, which allows access via an intermediary, 25% of the parents decline contact, says Nancy Golden, co-director of the Midwest Adoption Center, a group that does adoption counseling. She says the women may have kept the birth a secret or may fear anger from the adoptee. She says reunions usually are positive if people don't expect too much. Still, she says the experience can be "overwhelming."

Illinois state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, who plans to sponsor a bill this year to fully open records, says she was in her 20s when she found her birth mother. The woman's first response: "What took you so long?"

McQuade was 19, a college freshman, when she relinquished a baby girl in 1966. "I felt so powerless and shameful," she recalls. She later married the father and had two more daughters, but they didn't discuss their first child. "We hoped the pain would go away," she says, "but it never did."

Then came the phone call on Nov. 28, 1997, about 9:30 p.m. "I'm calling from New York," a woman said. "I knew what it was immediately," McQuade recalls. The caller, a friend of her first child, asked if the parents wanted contact. They did. The friend handed the phone to the daughter.

Mother and daughter spoke for the first time, neither sure what to say. McQuade started by telling her family medical information.

"It was kind of indescribable — terrified, excited, surreal," says her daughter Kathleen Laing. "We e-mailed every day for a year. It was incredibly intense."

They met in person the following July 4th weekend. "It was a complete roller coaster," McQuade says, from joy and hope to sadness at missing so many years. She says their reunion is "a fairy tale come true" that prompted her activism.

Benoit says that after she began pushing to unseal Maine's birth records, she asked a judge for her own. He said no. Later, to her surprise, she received a letter from the court that included her birth mother's name. She still does not have her original birth certificate.

She says the Bryants invited her to a Christmas party and other get-togethers. "Our family is happy to know her," Mark Bryant says.

Benoit says her birth mother was poor and about 50 when she was born, and did the right thing in relinquishing her baby. If her birth mother were alive, Benoit says, "Boy, would I love to put my arms around her and thank her."

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HIP HOP NEWS
January 25, 2008

DMC Pushes For Adoptee Rights In New Jersey
January 25th, 2008

Author: Jake Paine

Rap icon DMC of Run-DMC was speaking in a New Jersey statehouse yesterday (January 24) on behalf of adoptee's rights. Within the state, adoptees' birth records are kept restrictive to adoptive parents, which prevents many adoptees from knowing or seeking their blood relatives and parents.

DMC told New's Day, "This isn't about DMC the celebrity, this is really about identity and truth of a human being's existence." It was eight years ago that the emcee himself discovered he was adopted, and noticed the limiting resources he had in researching his lineage.

The efforts moved the process further. The audience of the senate committee unanimously passed the proposed bill, which will now go before New Jersey Senate. Although this bill has been reportedly passed in 2004 and 2006, it has never been put into law.

HipHopDX will keep you updated.


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GIGWISE
January 25, 2008

Run DMC Rapper Starts New Career Lobbying For Adoption Rights
NEWS

by Jason Gregory


Darryl McDaniels, who was one of the original members of the US rap group Run-DMC, has called on legislators in the US to give adoptees the right to access their birth records.

McDaniels, who is more widely known as DMC, became an adamant supporter of the adoption rights legislation after learning he was an adoptee at the age of 35.

He told senators in the New Jersey Statehouse yesterday: "This is really about identity and truth of a human being's existence."
Story continues below...

"We never start a book from Chapter 2, as adoptees we live our lives from Chapter 2."

If approved, the legislation would allow adoptees the access to the names, ages, birthplaces, birth dates and occupations of their biological parents, reports AP.

"This isn't about us going back to make the birth mother's life hectic," McDaniels, who won an Emmy in 2006 for a documentary about his adoption experience, said.

"I believe there should be a right. That is somebody's identity, you all, somebody's identity."


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NEW JERSEY: Adult Adoptees to Get Original Birth Records Now Sealed Under State Law

NEWARK STAR LEDGER
January 23, 2008

Adoption Records Bill Advances

Open-records advocates who have spent nearly 30 years lobbying for the legislation recruited Darryl McDaniels -- DMC of the pioneering rap group Run DMC -- to urge the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee to support the bill.
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The 43-year-old performer said he only learned about his adoption seven years ago while writing an autobiography. When he quizzed his mother about where he was born, she admitted he was adopted. The revelation devastated him because "I always thought I knew who I was."

"I understand protecting the rights of the birth mother, and there should be a protocol for that. This is not about making the birth mother's life hectic," McDaniels said, his voice cracking. "This is about the right of a human being to know the truth of the story of my existence."

The bill (S611) would allow adult adoptees or the adoptive parent of a child to petition the state registrar for an original birth certificate with the names of the biological parents.

The measure gives parents a year from the bill's enactment to file a notarized "No contact" letter with the state if they wish to remain anonymous. They would have to complete a medical and cultural history form every 10 years until the parent is 40, and every five years thereafter, or forfeit their anonymity.

The bill, in one form or another, has been before the Legislature since the session. Religious leaders, anti-abortion activists and, more recently, the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union have successfully lobbied against it, asking lawmakers to protect birth mothers, who believed they had anonymity when they gave up their children.

One speaker, Philip Foley, struck a particularly sorrowful note, telling how his wife had surrendered a child conceived through a rape when she was a teenager, only to have a member of their family confronted years later by his wife's adult daughter.

But Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex), the committee chairman and one of the bill's sponsors, said the bill is important.

"By implementing this bill into law, we will be offering answers to some of the most basic questions of identity for thousands of New Jerseyans," Vitale said after the vote.

Sen. Bill Baroni (R-Mercer), who was adopted himself, reluctantly voted for the bill.

"I am torn by these two very important interests -- the interests of moms who, in good faith, put children up for adoption, and kids like me, like Darryl, who don't start our lives from Chapter One."

"My sister, who passed away, always wanted to know," Baroni said. "One of the greatest days in her life was when she met her birth mother."

"In the end, I don't want to be a legislator who looks at Darryl and other kids and says, 'I know better than you do,'" Baroni said.

Marie Tasy, executive director of New Jersey Right to Life, said she and a coalition of other opponents would continue to fight the legislation. "This is not a compassionate choice at all."

The bill now awaits a full vote in the 40-member Senate.


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NEW JERSEY: Rapper lobbies NJ Lawmakers for Adoption Rights, January 24, 2008

NEWSDAY
January 24, 2008

Rapper Lobbies NJ Lawmakers for Adoption Rights
by Tom Hester, Jr.


TRENTON, N.J. - He became famous in the 1980s as the rapper DMC but came to the New Jersey Statehouse Thursday simply as Darryl McDaniels to ask lawmakers to give adoptees access to their birth records.

McDaniels, of the three-man rap group Run-DMC, lobbied lawmakers to pass a law to help adoptees learn their family history.

"This is really about identity and truth of a human being's existence," McDaniels told a Senate committee.

McDaniels discovered at age 35 that he was adopted and has since become a staunch supporter of adoption rights legislation.

McDaniels, now 43, won an Emmy Award for his 2006 documentary, "My Adoption Journey," which chronicled his search for and reunion with his birth parents.

Run-DMC was responsible for 1980s rap classics as "King of Rock," "It's Tricky" and a top-40 remake of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way."

But McDaniels emphasized Thursday, "This isn't about DMC the celebrity."

"We never start a book from Chapter 2," he said. "As adoptees we live our lives from Chapter 2."

Under New Jersey law, adoptees can only see a birth certificate with their adoptive parents' names.

The proposed law would allow future adoptees to get birth certificates with the names, ages, birthplaces, birth dates and occupations of biological parents.

It would allow those already adopted in New Jersey to obtain their birth certificate, although birth parents could contact the state to ask their names be deleted. If they do that, the state would require they provide a medical history.

Opponents said the law would cause problems for those who gave up children thinking they would remain anonymous, but supporters contend the measure would help adoptees know their family history.

After hearing from McDaniels, the committee voted unanimously to release the bill that can now be considered by the full Senate. It passed New Jersey Senate in 2004 and 2006 but has never made it into law.

"This isn't about us going back to make the birth mother's life hectic," McDaniels said. "I believe there should be a right. That is somebody's identity, you all, somebody's identity."

Senators praised McDaniels' testimony.

"Your being able to come before this committee I think will make a significant difference," said Sen. Diane Allen, R-Burlington.

McDaniels, for his part, prefers to give a concert over giving testimony.

"It's easy to rap," he said. Giving testimony? "That's rough."


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POLITICKER NJ.com
January 24,2008


Vitale Bill to Give Adoptees Access to Birth Records Advances
by Jason Butkowski


TRENTON – A bill sponsored by Senator Joseph F. Vitale which would give adult adoptees and certain others access to the adoptee’s birth certificate was unanimously approved by the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee.

“I think that most of us take for granted the fact that we can trace our family’s journey through preceding generations, and have a sense of self which includes what our parents and grandparents went through to deliver us to this moment in time,” said Senator Vitale, D-Middlesex, the Chair of the Senate health panel. “However, for many adopted New Jerseyans, there’s a missing piece to the puzzle, and so many unanswered questions about who they are and how they came to be. Through this legislation, we have a chance to give a brief glimpse of history to those adopted State residents who for so long were left in the dark regarding their birth parents.”

The bill, S-611, would permit access to the original birth certificates for adult adoptees, direct descendants of deceased adoptees, or the parents or guardians of minor adopted children without prior consent of the birth parent. The bill would provide that birth parents could submit a request for non-disclosure, prohibiting the State Registrar from providing the birth parent’s name and home address when receiving a request for an adopted person’s birth certificate, and would give parents of children born before the enactment of this bill a 12-month period from the date that regulations are adopted in order to opt-out. In place of their name and address, birth parents who choose the non-disclosure option would fill out a family history form containing medical, cultural and social history, and return it to the State Registrar within 60 days.

The birth parent would also be given the option to submit a document of contact preference, indicating the birth parent’s preference regarding contact with the adopted person.

“I understand there are some birth parents who might not want to be contacted, just as some adopted people might not want to find out about their birth parents,” said Senator Vitale. “While we want to give these parents the option to remain anonymous, we want to give adopted New Jerseyans something in terms of a family history. At the very least, these folks will have some idea where they came from.”

Senator Vitale added that a family history would be useful for a number of practical purposes, including helping to shape decisions about medical care.

“If doctors know someone’s genetically predisposed to certain kinds of reactions or disorders, that goes a long way in helping to provide effective health care,” said Senator Vitale. “Something as basic as a family medical history is often taken for granted by people who know their birth parents, but it can be so very important in ensuring proper medical care for adopted people.”

Senator Vitale has been working to advance similar legislation for the last two legislative sessions. He said he will continue to fight for this measure, because “it is the right thing to do for adopted people in New Jersey wondering where they came from.”

“This a matter of basic fairness for people who spend much of their life always searching for that missing piece of the puzzle,” said Senator Vitale. “The fact of the matter is, without this law, there are people in this State who will track down their birth parents, by hiring expensive private investigators and pouring for months, if not years, over currently available vital statistics. That process is long and costly, and out of the reach of many adopted individuals seeking answers.

“By implementing this bill into law, we will be offering answers to some of the most basic questions of identity for thousands of New Jerseyans,” added Senator Vitale. “We can give these people a glimpse into their past, access to important medical information, and possibly reunite families. This bill is too important to let lapse without action for another legislative session.”

The bill now heads to the full Senate for consideration.
Contact:

Jason Butkowski
New Jersey Senate Democratic Office
Tel:
E-Mail: jbutkowski@njleg.org
Web: www.njsendems.com


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